She’ll never forget the morning she left. It was drizzly that March morning, a fine drizzle that would have saturated her were it not for the umbrella. A drizzle that drew out all the scents of the wood, the grasses and ferns and lichens and honey sap. A drizzle that fell like manna on her tongue and promised more, the beginnings of bright new days, that’s what she hoped for, the beginnings of a brand new life too if everything went according to plan.
There was very little noise in Troubadour’s Wood that morning, the birds still tucked up in the skittering light and the drizzle, a bare hiss echoing that of the fading lamp-posts. The pitter-patter of her footsteps rang alive in her ears, a tantalising sing-song bringing her closer with every step to the kind of freedom she craved.
She saw nothing in the distance only the promise of tomorrow, a new dawn breaking out over the horizon barely visible behind the fog. Visible enough for her to picture it though and to believe in its bountiful beauty. She had done it. She had left. There was no going back now. She was free….
